Iron Workers Fired After Voting to Unionize
Illinois Ironworkers were betrayed by their bosses. Now they're fighting back.
Ironworkers at an Illinois G&D Integrated facility were laid off after voting to unionize.
G&D Integrated is a large trucking and logistics company with 1,000 employees. Welders at the Illinois manufacture parts for mining trucks and equipment. In 2021, workers organized for a say in shop safety protocols.
Despite overwhelming union support, G&D launched an intense anti-union campaign that included harassing and surveilling the workers, as well as threatening to close down the shop. Workers filed more than 100 unfair labor practice violations against the company. Then in March 2022, the welders were laid off, effective immediately.
“I was working on a deck that I had stood up on a crane and was still welding out for all of our orders to be complete, what about the one I’m working on? It didn’t make any sense,” recalls welder Evyn Way.
Now a coalition of 12,000 Ironworkers is calling on the National Labor Board of Relations to force G&D to bargain in good faith and reinstate the fired workers.
